The U.S. seems to have a AI agent software advantage for the moment, although it is impossible to quantify or qualify the progress nor does China advertise any of its AI pilot efforts. The U.S. almost certainly has a current advantage in producing UCAVs in the 10,000 MTOW range, if only because it can directly purchase engines in the 3,000-8000 lb thrust range off the shelve from a half dozen different commercial manufacturers, where as this industry niche is much more sparse in China. Also the U.S. already has something like a half dozen platforms being developed in this range already, most of which are already flying prototypes or even in limited production. So I think the U.S. acquires A2A UCAVs in numbers before the PRC. How long it maintains that advantage is impossible to say. Major efforts would likely have to be made to maintain production parity, likely involving multiple manufacturers producing UCAVs and all of them being used concurrently in order to utilize as many active lines as possible.
Right now US
still has all the advantages other than geography, it's indisputable. It still produces more in all aircraft categories where it even bothers to produce (the basic norm of our world ever since mid-ww2).
The problems are three: First, the trend is negative for the US and positive for China. Ultimately, planes are just another type of manufactured goods, and China is just growing like mad. It was rosier when Chinese manufacturers were stuck figuring it out, but now even worse among their sorrow spots are "good enough to fight".
Then, CCAs are not here yet. It's quite reasonable now to make a "weapon carrier"(multirole, reusable cruise missile), but turning cooperative part into reality takes time. Both to develop and to make it operational.
Finally, in PPP terms, China dwarfs the competition. The US, especially due to inflation and debt payments, seems to be stuck in their ability to finance things. China is simply not.
US-aligned economies are doing outright bad, so there's little help from outside, too. It wasn't too long ago when Japan was almost "big 3" with incredible militarization potential - and now...
The trend is the way it is, by late 2020s CCA mass is just not in US favor.
Instead of making Battlestars with CCA swarms(which to me is now China's way), it becomes advantageous to try to get as many manned/unmanned teams as possible, winning on flexibility and "quality of quantity". This indeed seems to be the way USAF now tries to go.
This approach requires high numbers of both unmanned
and manned components. And manned can't be F-35 - it is not as cheap as desired(but that's ok), it isn't as advanced as desired anymore(
see the list by
@quellish above; those 3 items are a big thing to me).
It is not exactly an example of how good a US-made air superiority fighter should fly A2A mission profiles.
Most crucially - you just can't wait for F-35 global updates the way it happens now. If you want to change CCA generations like gloves - it doesn't add up.
It logically leads to an all-new, affordable
and advanced, light/medium-class, a2a-focused fighter aircraft (not a pound of compromise). The problem - United States didn't need to mix those qualities for decades; can the US even do it now?
Like, say, an even more scaled-down ....Lockheed Su-75 almost(lol), on a careful mix of off-the-shelf(stealth), ongoing(AETP?), and most crucial and affordable new (open architecture, digital design).
Who's going to develop it? Big MIC, the preferred option, is known neither as "in time" nor "on budget". New MIC is all promises, but it is yet to show itself capable.
Even the famous F-35-loving, soon-to-be head of DOGE is known for being "on budget", but not so much for "in time".
But US just can't afford to procrastinate now, new fighter is needed even more urgently. Too much time was wasted on the original dead end.
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